"Study 1 found DAT1 10-repeat allele to negatively relate to proactive personality, which in turn was positively associated with leadership role occupancy. The negative indirect effect was significant, but the overall relationship between this gene and leadership was not. In addition to replicating Study 1's findings using a nationally representative sample, Study 2 revealed another countervailing mechanism: DAT1 was positively related to (moderate) rule breaking, which was positively associated with leadership role occupancy."

DAT affects connectivity at different states which in theory should be exactly what OE, OP, ME, MP should be about.

"We found that regardless of cognitive state, connections between frontal, parietal, and striatal nodes of Task-Positive networks (TPNs) and Task-Negative networks (TNNs) showed higher functional connectivity in 10/10 homozygotes of the dopamine transporter gene, a polymorphism influencing synaptic dopamine, than in 9/10 heterozygotes. However, performance of a working memory task (a state requiring dopamine release) modulated genotype differences selectively, such that cross-network connectivity between TPNs and TNNs was higher in 10/10 than 9/10 subjects during working memory but not during rest. This increased cross-network connectivity was associated with increased self-reported measures of impulsivity and inattention traits. By linking a gene regulating synaptic dopamine to a phenotype characterized by inefficient executive function, these findings validate cross-network connectivity as an endophenotype of executive dysfunction."

My hypothesis is that differences in DAT-density at different locations is the defining (atomic / reductionistic) factor in determining if a person has OE, MP or ME, OP and that we should change the questions to reflect what engages / activates a person (mechanic or organic) and what disengages / inactivates a person (mechanic or organic).

For example, questions for ME could be:
"When I find systemic errors I tend to get engaged or activated."
"When I find inefficiencies in in procedures I tend to get engaged or activated."
"When I find unproductive routines I tend to try to proactively fix them."
"When I find disorganized systems I tend to try to practively organize them."

What do you think?

ErikThor

Published: 07-20-2015 08:42 am

This is really cool information, glad we're beginning to get to the bottom of the genetic components we've speculated to exist for a long time. It's hard for people to understand what we mean with systems, proactively and activated. We need to dumb it down for test-takers, for example with questions like these:

Organic statements: / TNN
…reflecting on what I like about an experience.
…studying how others feel about an experience.
…expressing my interests and values.
…expressing how I feel about others.…expressing qualitative feedback

Mechanic statements / TPN
…learning how to use a word correctly.
…studying instructions.
…learning a new skill.
…studying how a tool works.
…expressing numbers or facts.

Regarding proactiveness in this article, I think they're more likely to be referring to the Top-down network vs the Bottom-up network. What they measured wasn't proactiveness, it was how likely a person was to work in a leadership position. (Atleast according to the excerpt, can't access the full study.)

"Here, we investigated in 131 healthy adults whether dopamine is similarly involved in social WM by testing whether social and nonsocial WM are influenced by genetic variants in three genes coding for molecules regulating the availability of dopamine in the brain: catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), dopamine active transporter (DAT), and monoamine-oxidase A (MAOA). An advantage for the Met allele of COMT was observed in the two standard WM tasks and in the social WM task. However, the influence of COMT on social WM performance was not accounted for by its influence on either standard WM paradigms. There was no main effect of DAT1 or MAOA, but a significant COMT x DAT1 interaction on social WM performance."

This means that the COMT Val158Met polymorphism not only enhances working-memory in general but that certain DAT-genes combined with the COMT polymorphism increase social working memory. So this is exactly what I predicted. COMT Val158Met increases working-memory capacity in general (and other things) and DAT-genes influence Mechanic Execution (ME) or Organic Execution (OE).